Recently, I spent the weekend away at a friend’s cottage. It was a weekend away for a group of 6 ladies…a pre-wedding event for my future sister-in-law. When planning out what food I would contribute to the trip I decided to make one of my all-time favourite summer recipes – gazpacho. While I do love a good summer salad, this gazpacho soup recipe is amazing.
Summer Soup Gazpacho
a few sprigs of basil
Fresh Gazpacho Summer Soup
Ingredients
- 3 large ripe tomatoes (approx. 3 cups) peeled and seeded
- 1 english cucumber peeled and seeded
- 1 sweet pepper chopped
- 1 shallot chopped
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 1 1/2 cups tomato juice unsalted
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp ground black pepper
- 1/4 cup fresh basil
- 2-3 dashes hot sauce your favourite kind
Instructions
- Begin with peeling and seeding the tomatoes and cucumber. Peeling tomatoes is easier than you might think. Use a sharp knife to cut a shallow “x” in the bottom of the tomato.
- Place tomatoes in a bowl and cover the tomatoes with boiling water. The skin will start to curl at the “x”.
- Remove the tomatoes from boiling water and peel off the skin with your fingers. It should simply slide right off. If it isn’t peeling easily, pop it in another round of boiling water.
- Seed the tomatoes. Slice the tomatoes in half. Use your fingers to scoop out the seeds. This is a great job for the kids to tackle.
- Set the tomatoes aside in a large bowl and move onto the cucumbers. Slice the cucumber in half, lengthwise. Use a small spoon to scoop out any seeds. Finely chop the seeded cucumber and add it to the bowl of tomatoes.
- Chop the pepper, onion and mince the garlic and add them to the bowl with the tomatoes and cucumber
- Now, transfer 3/4 of the veggie mixture to a blender. Add the tomato juice, hot sauce, basil leaves and olive oil to the blender. And the salt and pepper too.
- Blend the gazpacho until it is smooth. Transfer to a serving bowl.
- Stir in the remaining 1/4 portion of chopped veggies to the gazpacho. So there are still some pieces of vegetables. If you prefer, you can blend all the veggies and the soup will be totally smooth. Finally, it’s time to pour the soup into a serving bowl.
- The flavour of this gazpacho only gets better as it sits. Cover it and then set it in the fridge to totally chill (at least an hour) and let all the flavours mingle. Taste the gazpacho to see if you would like to add more salt or pepper or more hot sauce.
- When you are ready to serve the gazpacho it can be served with croutons on top, a few leaves of basil.
Notes
Nutrition
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